Page:Anna Chapin--Half a dozen boys.djvu/302

270 Walsh grounds, as it was a favorite meeting-place with the boys.

“Fred’s blue to-day,” remarked Rob to Bert, who stood near him for a moment.

“Poor old lad! I don’t wonder,” answered Bert, as he watched the retreating figure. “I wonder if somebody’d better go with him.”

“I don’t believe so,” said Rob. “When he’s like this, he’d rather be let alone than anything else; and he won’t try to go beyond the hammock. I don’t think I’ll go.”

Poor Rob! How often and how long he regretted this decision!

The bonfire was ready and Ted applied the match. Instantly the flame began to crackle through the dry twigs, and soon it mounted in a roaring cone high above the pile of brush, dry as tinder, for no rain had fallen for more than a week. The boys joined hands and frisked about the fire; then, arming themselves with long poles, they thrust them into the midst of the blaze, stirring up a cloud of tiny sparks and larger flakes of fire that floated up and away in the gentle September breeze. Of course it was warm exercise, but what boy minds that, when